Online Reputation Management Using Social Media

• No matter how strong your products, they’re only as good as buyers think they are. –
@MrWhatman

• But here’s the secret: your reputation isn’t built by accident. It comes from reviews, comments,
and conversations between customers. You need to make sure that your brand is presented in
the right light.

• A hands-on reputation management strategy can make a huge difference. By paying close
attention to what people say, you can give your brand some much-needed prestige. That “it”
factor.

• What is reputation management?

• Simply put, reputation management is the process of controlling and improving how your
brand is perceived by others. And it’s become a huge industry.

• Two keys to any reputation management strategy

• 1. Monitor: Know customers, influencers, and competitors say about your brand; and
2. Respond: Take active measures to develop a positive brand identity, and improve what people
say about you.

• Step 1: Monitor your reputation

• The first step is the most important. Without this, you really can’t do the rest. This whole action
plan is based on the premise that you hear what people say about you, and then you respond.

• So, first you need to listen.

• What you monitor depends on where your brand is present. Do people talk about you on social
media, on forums, or on review sites like TripAdvisor or Amazon? Do you even know?

• For starters, if you’re a restaurant, bar, or tourist attraction, you need to monitor review sites. If
you have a physical location, you can bet that people give their opinions about you on Yelp,
TripAdvisor, and Google.

• If you sell physical products, you also need to keep an eye on Amazon, eBay, and other online
retailers. Buyers rely on internet reviews before choosing their phone, laptop, and even their
car. In fact, 69% of shoppers consult reviews before buying anything online.

• On top of these obvious review sites, you also need to think about blogs. Countless thousands
(millions, even) of bloggers write and publish reviews about anything from the best brunch spots
to the perfect basketball shoes. So you should be tracking these.
 • But we’re not only looking at reviews. What about the social media conversations happening
every day?

• How to monitor your brand’s reputation ?

• Luckily, there are tools that do this for you. Since you can’t possibly hope to scan every social
media platform, forum, blog, and review site manually, you need an app.

• You also have forums, blogs, news sites, and all of social media to worry about. To know what
people say about you on all these sources, you’ll need a media monitoring tool like Mention.

• Media monitoring lets you track the whole lot from a single dashboard, so you don’t have to go
looking.

• The other benefit of such tools is that they’ll tell you when people talk about you, not
just to you. Get the distinction?

• On social media, you get notified when someone mentions your brand by name. We call this an
@mention. But what if they use your brand name without the “@” symbol?

• Since monitoring is based on keywords, these tools will still catch this. So it doesn’t matter if
someone writes “Nike,” “@Nike,” or “#Nike.” You’ll catch it all. This is essential if you want to
know everything said about your brand online.

• Step 2: Devise a response plan

Consider the following:

• Who will monitor for comments and reviews?

• Who decides whether new comments require a response?

• Who knows what position the company should take regarding potential issues or questions?

• Who will deliver the response?

• Step 3: Handle negative comments delicately

• Responding also gives you a chance to clear the air. 80% of unhappy customers were won over
with the right response.

• So what’s the right approach?

Polite. Professional. Friendly.

Speed rules - Response time is one of the most important factors in recovering from a harsh
review. If you’re quick to help people who’ve had a bad experience, they’re much more likely to change
their opinion.
 • Use complaints to your advantage

• Customer complaints can almost always be used as a lesson. Even if you think the person is way
off-base, they’re surely not the only one who feels this way. To repeat, your product is only as
good as people think it is. So if people think it needs improving, it probably does.

• If necessary, continue the conversation in private. If the complaint is too severe, or if the
individual in question is past the point of winning over, ask for an email address or phone
number and smooth things over privately.

• This definitely does not mean that you should try to remove complaints from sites just because
aren’t flattering. That’s asking for trouble.

• But if you don’t think you can solve the issue in public, it’s best to do so one-on-one.

• Step 4: Build on the positives

• Just as you shouldn’t ignore bad comments, it pays to respond to good ones too. These are the
posts that actually enhance your online reputation. Not only will you reward customers for
saying nice things, you’ll encourage others to do the same.

• But how can you generate even more positive reviews?

Actively manage your online profiles

You may have heard of the “90/9/1” rule. According to Susan Kuchinskas, only 1% of social
media users create content. Another 9% percent comment or interact with that content. But 90% of
visitors – a massive majority – are there simply to read a review, and then leave.

• Step 5: Follow through and measure your results

• The final step is to actually make the changes you’ve committed yourself to.

• If you’re using a monitoring tool, this can be incredibly simple. Review sites come with scores,
and you can watch these grow as you provide value to your community. As your average moves
from three stars to four, or from 50% to 70% positive, you can be sure that you’re moving in the
right direction.

• You can do the same on social media. Mention (among others) comes with built-in sentiment
analysis. You’ll be able to watch as positive sentiment about your soars following the work
you’ve done

The best tools for the reputation management

• 1. Reputology: If you care about your business on review sites, this is great! It gives you a single
account from which you can manage all your review profiles, including Yelp!, TripAdvisor, and the
other big names.
• It’s annoying to have to move around the web, checking each site individually. Plus, you’re
bound to miss things. With Reputology, you won’t.

• 2. Mention: If you care about more than review sites (and you should), Mention has you
covered. The tool monitors the web, social media, forums, blogs, and even television.

• And Mention users have access to Reputology’s range of sources, so you’re able to track reviews
in the same place as all the rest. Talk about a time-saver!

• 3. The Brand Grader: This is a fun, free tool we built to give anyone a snapshot of their brand
online. It’s not comprehensive, but you’ll get an idea of sentiment towards your brand, how your
social profiles perform, and a few other key stats.

• Plus, it’s instant, and you don’t have to sign up for anything. Nice!

• 4. SimilarWeb: This is a great tool to compare one brand’s web presence with another. By just
using their free tools, you’ll know how much traffic your competitors receive, where their traffic
comes from, and how they rate within your industry.